$2/$5 NL with 77

I would jam

Raise/fold preflop; developing an open-limping range will complicate your strategy.

Otf: check to the raiser, especially if they are aggressive. You will have a leading range on some boards, but this not one of them.

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why did you donk the flop?

pre obv is not standard but i can see it being good if you are to the aggro's direct right. i would imagine the action you want is that the PFR raises, there are multiple callers, and you can either call or 3b with your holding. i have done this before with a range of hands where i will call with pairs and limp 3b with AK/AQ/TT-AA type hands.

here you got the pf action you wanted and you got your flop, so stick with the plan and CR the flop.

as played call and play rivers. theres a chance if he has TT than he will check any 4 card straight river.

also i know you didnt ask it - but im curious - do you vary your turn bet size here depending on the strength of your hand? here you are betting turn almost pot. do you do that with other hands or just sets/two pair/straights? some would say that might be a leak.

Why are you open-limping 77?

Not folding but you are losing under this config an absurd amount @ 2/5

Open limping 77 is bad, just raise. Donking flop is bad.

I'm not thrilled with turn but I would jam over his raise with about half pot left behind.

Also 9 handed UTG +3 is called lowjack (LJ) and UTG+4 is called the highjack (HJ). UTG+3 and UTG+4 are just confusing terms.

Weird hand. Agree with others that limping pre is bad. I could go either way with the flop donk. As played, V is going to be hard pressed to put us on a set, so I'm probably 3B-jamming turn, just praying V doesn't have TT.

Basically what everyone else wrote 😉

I don't hate limp-calling (although I would always open this hand from this position) but I do hate donking for 2/3 pot into four people. This is a perfect spot to check-raise with both value and bluffs. The giant, multiway donk followed by the pot-sized turn bet is so face up to me as thick value that I think a good villain could probably start folding overpairs.

AP, anytime someone min-raises in-position I am wary of a "stop bet" type play where villain is hoping to buy a cheap showdown by checking back river. Jamming looks even more face up but might be worth it in case he has a hand like ATdd or JTdd that won't fold.

Thanks all for the feedback. I jammed and V had 9j o/s.....

i get these feedback a lot, but i'm just not a fan of raising with medium PP....like what % of the times does your C-bets get called vs. folded too?

The problem with these kinds of adjustments is that it's much easier to see where it is going wrong "now" (you want to cbet too often, or for too much, with 77 when it's a bad flop+) but it's much more difficult to see where it's going wrong with your adjusted strategy, even if you lose more money overall.

If you want to split between limps and raises you have to be very good to do it in a way that's not obvious/bad, just saying to yourself I want to play 77/22/A5s but I don't want to raise is the opposite of that though.

Adding to illiterat's points...

When we limp and V raises, his range is uncapped, but also potentially very wide, setting us up for a guessing game post flop. V has all the over-pairs to the board, but can also show up with BS hands like J9o that float the flop and turn a sneaky straight. Now we're trying to shovel the money in, hoping V is at or near the top of his pre-flop raising range when in fact we're crushed by the bottom of that range.

If we'd opened to $20 pre, V probably folds pre. Even if he calls, he's probably not getting to the turn with J9o, especially with no diamonds. We could c-bet for full pot, or go for a check-raise, and he's almost always going to fold.

All that said, V got very lucky to drill an inside straight on the turn, after calling your 80% pot donk. Not much we can do in this spot, other than maybe fold to his raise, which seems super exploitable.

I don’t mind open limping small pocket pairs. Limon used to advocate for that a lot. Flip donk is OK too considering this flop checks through a decent amount of the time multiway. On the turn I think we went way too big and put ourselves in this spot. I think if we go 105, call it’s our best option and then check/call is second best.

I wouldn't open limp in a very deep game because the re-raise wouldn't stop all the action. but in your standard modern "capped" game or shorter stacks among fish getting reraised kills all the action, no one has enough money left to profitably play post flop. open raising in these 100bb games causes the awful, but common, spot of: making it 3x, 2 fish call, and then euro grinder or asperger pro makes it 15x and the hand is over (for you). much better off limping, getting 2 calls from the fish, asperger makes it 6x, everyone calls, and you see a flop with a hand that is easy to play and wins big pots. this dynamic also straps the aspergerr pro in because he has to play fit or fold flop multi way and you'll often see 4 cards and play your hand perfectly on many turns where your pair is GOOD!

I don't think preflop or flop are bad. The limp makes a multiway pot more likely. The preflop raiser is going to check back a lot on 872 4-way. By c-betting he is only representing an overpair, and it isn't even a great flop for an overpair.

I agree with the fundamental point here (although I might have expressed it differently). If you're at tables where multiple players are calling EP RFIs and a few studied types are waiting to squeeze, you might find yourself raising first-in and then folding too often. Obviously, if you're playing more than 100bb and there aren't a bunch of players between you and the squeezer you can defend a hand like 77; otherwise you have to fold or go for a light 4bet. Under these table conditions limping pocket pairs and suited aces can be ok (folding them is ok too).

folding them is no bueno imo, playing small pocket pairs against fish and a fit or fold pfraiser in a multi way pot. is a big +ev situation.

Agree that you can still gain significant value from sets in multiway pots, so long as you know when to fast-play v slow-play them, depending upon players involved and board texture and so on. If you believe there's a decent chance a rec might be planning on a "devious" limp raise or that pros are re-squeezing other pros from the blinds or that you might just end up HU against a pro, then I'm not adverse to folding 22-77 from EP. You'd probably call me a nit but that's ok because I probably am in these circumstances: I actually don't like riding that internal wave of expectation where we're hoping a card on the flop matches one in your hand (although the "ding, ding" sound I hear in my head when it happens is kind of nice). I'd much rather play T9s than 77 from EP but I'll admit the latter is far less complicated and has fewer pitfalls.

Small pps, particularly like 77, are very valuable in a loose low-mid stakes game like most 2-5 games. Limping them makes it less likely you get pushed off of them preflop. In a loose game it is fine if you get 3! with 77, because it means the 3-bettor usually has JJ+/AK and is likely to pay off your set, and if it goes multiway 3-bet you are getting good odds for your set. Sure, you usually have to fold the 87% of the time you miss. You are going to often win big pots when you hit. Sometimes like here you get stacked with a set, but overall it is profitable.

Now if an early position player raises and you have 22 in the SB, it may be a fold, as you are not getting good pot odds and your hand will be difficult to play if you miss. In a tougher high stakes game, it may be a fold in ep. In a tournament where you are playing shallow, unless you are real short and can push, like 22 is usually a fold in ep.

Here some clown raises with J9o like you waived a flag in front of a bull by limping. It may work against fish limp/calling junk and folding a lot postflop. He certainly should fold J9o to a raise. But long-term, it is good for you to play against junk.

Some of the posts early in the thread about don't limp and don't donk don't make a lot of sense. Whether or not the limp or donk are the best plays here, they are reasonable alternatives in the situation. It isn't good to base play on rules like don't do this or that.

tl;dr You can play any2 anyway you want, and the worse everyone else at the table is the more you can do random bad things and it'll be fine.

The 2-5 games I play are mostly much more aware than 1-2 games, with very little limping. YMMV.

IMNSHO people who play 77 this way, tend to way over estimate how good it is and how often they get paid etc. Maybe some of them just run super hot, but it's more likely you just forget all the times you limp/call pre. and x/f flop, or limp pre. and it goes 666 ways and you end up with a set on a 4 card straight, 3 card flush board, or...

How is this different? Sure, 77 is > 22 but we are still OOP with a smaller pair and a capped (open limp is often much worse then SB call, due to having a very specific/narrow) range.
Most people I see limp/calling 77 in this spot will also snap call 22 in the SB.

Yeh, we really showed this clown ... he raised pre. with close to 50% equity vs. us and he had uncapped his range so we x/f on KQ5 and we almost never get paid when we think we should on K76 or whatever ... and this time we got lucky and hit our 1 in 8 shot and still lost.
It might have been an absolute disaster, but I'm sure we'll make it up in volume.

Someone recently told me a HH where they played 22 in a multiway limped pot and flopped quads, checked to the river where a 4 card straight hit and then they open shoved for 15x-20x the pot ... and got snap called by the straight. I'll probably never make as much as they did in that hand, maybe deuceblocker or limon can.

The guy with J9o won a big pot, but his preflop and flop plays were questionable.

I think it is close whether to fold GTO is 4th position according to GTO. You don't ignore GTO, but make adjustments to GTO with a loose game with many multiway pots. In that situation pps and to some extent Axs go up in value.

Not advocating the limp, but limping 77 is pretty close to raising it in expectation.

Obviously, you are folding the flop with 77 a lot. Sometimes, like here you make a set and get stacked. Sometimes, you make a set and have a difficult board for a set. However, a set is obviously much stronger postflop than a big overpair, which also can have bad board. The point is that it is profitable on average to play pps in loose passive games. Sure you would rather have JJ or AK than 77, but 77 is playable in live games, even when it is not GTO to play it.

He had many medals attached to his chest, too, which shouldn't be forgotten. Past glory is a weapon in itself, albeit not a very effective one.

In warfare, you need to adapt to the enemy and the situation, not go by the book. For example, McClellan was a great general in terms of following procedures, etc. However, an aggressive general Lee ran rings around him with a smaller force.

Blindly following by the book approaches, such as software ranges and rules about not limping or donking is not the most effective approach.

GTO says fold 22 in ep. However, at most 2/5 tables and more so below that, it is a profitable open raise or limp from any position.